Oxford University professor quits Blavatnik school in Donald Trump protest

Oligarch who funded school of government says he gave to Trump inauguration and not election campaign, but Bo Rothstein says it counts as ‘irresponsible’ backing

Bo Rothstein was professor of government and public policy at the Blavatnik school of government, named after billionaire oligarch Len Blavatnik who donated £75m to Oxford University to set up the school.
Photograph: Alamy

Tuesday 29 August 2017 07.26 EDT
First published on Monday 28 August 2017 11.02 EDT

A leading political academic has resigned from his Oxford University post after he claimed that one of the university’s main patrons is also one of Donald Trump’s biggest financial backers.

Bo Rothstein was a professor of government and public policy at the Blavatnik school of government, named after the Ukrainian-born billionaire Leonard Blavatnik, who gave the university £75m to set up the school.

Rothstein said he resigned on Monday after concluding that Blavatnik had given a substantial donation to Trump’s inauguration, which he called “incomprehensible and irresponsible”.

Hours after news of the resignation emerged, a spokesman for Blavatnik denied this was the case. He said the oligarch had only donated $1m (£770,000) to Trump’s inauguration committee, which he said was a joint congressional committee that “helps to organise public and private events during the week leading up to the inauguration”.

The spokesman added that despite the professor’s resignation “neither Blavatnik nor any of his companies ever made a donation to the Trump presidential campaign”.

After Blavatnik’s spokesman released his statement, Rothstein told the Guardian: “The information I based my decision on, which is now verified by a spokesperson for Mr Blavatnik, is that a donation was given to Trump’s inauguration. That is in my book a support to Donald Trump.”

In his resignation letter, Rothstein said: “President Trump stands for a system of governing that is completely contrary to what I have come to define as ‘quality of government’.” He said his own research had found that “quality of government” was crucial for improving human wellbeing.

The letter added: “As I see it, Donald Trump’s policies are also antithetical to the goal of the Blavatnik school of government, which aims to improve the quality of government and public policymaking worldwide, so that citizens can enjoy more secure and more fulfilled lives.”

Oxford University said: “Len Blavatnik did not contribute to Donald Trump’s campaign either before or after the election, although he did make contributions to the campaigns of other Republican candidates.”

Rothstein, an expert on political governance and corruption, told the Swedish news site Dagen Nyheter that he had read about Blavatnik’s donations to Trump in the Dallas News. That report details that Blavatnik made donations to Marco Rubio and other unsuccessful Republican candidates but not Trump.

The signatories accused the university of failing to investigate whether Blavatnik and other oligarchs played any role in what they described as a state-sponsored campaign of harassment against BP in Russia in 2008.

Blavatnik was named the UK’s richest man in 2015, with an estimated wealth of more than £17.1bn. He made his fortune through his company Access Industries, which began buying up aluminium and businesses in Russia during the fall of the Soviet Union. He has since expanded into property, film and music, and took control of Warner Music Group for $3.3bn in 2011. He became a US citizen in 1984 and a UK citizen in 2010.